Bill Text: IL HR0582 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Urges the Illinois Supreme Court and relevant authorities to require, as a consistent part of continuing education, LGBTQ+ and HIV cultural competency education for all attorneys, judges, and courtroom staff in the State of Illinois.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 19-0)

Status: (Passed) 2024-04-30 - Resolution Adopted 074-036-000 [HR0582 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HR0582-Introduced.html

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HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The Illinois Supreme Court administers the
State's legal system, regulates the legal profession, and
seeks to foster a diverse and inclusive legal system; and
WHEREAS, Despite more and more LGBTQ+ people and people
living with HIV who are living as their authentic selves, the
Illinois Supreme Court does not have a formal education
requirement for attorneys, judges, and courtroom staff to be
aware of and meet the social and cultural needs of LGBTQ+
communities and people living with HIV; and
WHEREAS, In 2023, more than 600 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were
introduced in statehouses across the country, including
initiatives to criminalize healthcare for trans individuals,
to create licenses to discriminate against LGBTQ+ families,
and to deny LGBTQ+ students the opportunity to experience the
stories of people like themselves, and such anti-LGBTQ+ bills
are contrary to the values of the State of Illinois; and
WHEREAS, As LGBTQ+ people and families visit Illinois to
access reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care or
move to Illinois in order to escape the oppression of cruel and
harsh anti-LGBTQ+ regimes in other states, attorneys, judges,
and courtroom staff in Illinois will more frequently come into

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contact with and represent LGBTQ+ people who need legal
services to defend their rights, freedom, and bodily autonomy;
and
WHEREAS, The Movement Advancement Project's August 2016
report, entitled Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice
System Fails LGBT People of Color, wrote that "Discrimination
against LGBT people, particularly LGBT people of color, is
pervasive, and it infiltrates the halls of justice", and that
"Judges, prosecutors, and even defense attorneys tasked with
representing LGBT people often rely on misinformation,
stereotypes, and inflammatory language when interacting with
LGBT people"; for instance, "LGBT immigrants frequently
encounter judges who are unfamiliar with the challenges facing
LGBT people in other countries or who use incorrect language
to refer to transgender immigrants"; and
WHEREAS, Lambda Legal's Protected and Served? 2022 report
includes data from a national survey about the experiences of
LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV when in courts and
courthouses; and
WHEREAS, Of survey participants who had appeared in court,
22.2% of those who identified as LGBTQ+, women, or individuals
living with HIV indicated that someone in the legal
profession, including judges, public defenders, prosecutors,

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court clerks, court security, or other court employees, made
negative comments to or about them relating to sexual
orientation, gender identity or expression, or HIV status; and
WHEREAS, In that same report, 30.1% of transgender
participants had their gender identity inappropriately
revealed in court; in particular, transgender participants of
color were more likely to have their gender identity revealed
in court than were those who were white; specifically, 42.9%
of Indigenous trans people, 42.3% of Black trans people, 34.5%
of Latinx trans people, and 23.3% of white trans people
reported having their gender identity inappropriately revealed
in court; and
WHEREAS, The report additionally revealed that 25.0% of
people living with HIV said that their HIV status, which is
private health information, was inappropriately revealed in
court; and
WHEREAS, According to the 2015 US Trans Survey, 13% of
respondents reported negative experiences in a court or
courthouse because of being transgender; additionally, 6% of
respondents reported negative experiences when accessing legal
services from an attorney, a clinic, or a legal professional
because of being transgender; negative experiences include
being denied equal treatment or service, verbally harassed, or

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physically attacked because of being transgender; and
WHEREAS, Reports by the Movement Advancement Project and
Lambda Legal and the US Trans Survey highlight the pervasive
harassment, discrimination, and exclusion that LGBTQ+ people
and people living with HIV experience in law offices, legal
clinics, courts, and courthouses; this harassment,
discrimination, and exclusion contribute to the distrust of
the legal system by LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV;
in fact, according to Lambda Legal's survey, 32.2% of LGBTQ+
people do not trust the court system at all while only 8.5%
completely trust the court system; and
WHEREAS, The Illinois Supreme Court and relevant
authorities have the authority to require that attorneys,
judges, and courtroom staff be trained in LGBTQ+ and HIV
cultural competency as part of continuing education; having
such a requirement will increase the ability of attorneys,
judges, and courtroom staff to meet the social and cultural
needs of a diversifying state; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we urge the Illinois Supreme Court and relevant authorities to
require, as a consistent part of continuing education, LGBTQ+
and HIV cultural competency education for all attorneys,

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judges, and courtroom staff in the State of Illinois; and be it
further